Em Rusciano thought she was a ‘broken, lesser human’. Her autism diagnosis changed everything

Over the past few years, Em Rusciano ended her marriage, re-entered the dating world in her mid-40s, re-built her life as a single parent – and began questioning the stories women are told about love, identity and success.

“My whole life, I was conditioned to believe I wasn’t a successful woman until I was chosen,” says the comedian, singer , author and podcaster , who will tour her new live show, Addicted to Love , in September. “Not just chosen by romantic partners but chosen by my friends, my parents, the workplace and the public. And ironically, my job involves having people choose me over and over again.”

Rusciano and her ex-partner were together for 25 years. Naturally, the end of any long-term relationship involves some degree of pain, upheaval and uncertainty.

“But it wasn’t a failure, it was just an ending,” she says. “We have three beautiful kids, we’re still great friends and we’re going to be in each other’s lives forever.

“Often, women get to midlife and our estrogen, which is the nurturing hormone, is leaving our bodies. We look at our lives and we’re like, ‘ Jesus Christ, I don’t want this any more ! I don’t want to be a martyr; I don’t want to be the chef, the cook, the cleaner, the psychologist, the chauffeur, the organiser, the curator, the organiser. I’m exhausted and I’ve got nothing left for myself.’ And we get to that point too often and too late. If I can grab the 20-year-olds and 30-year-olds – and if I can teach men to take on more of the load – I think that will help those coming up behind me.

“Women are told you’ve got to sacrifice everything and set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm; that you can contort yourself into lots of different shapes so that you are the one who is chosen. And I really interrogated that idea while writing this show.”

Convincing myself I’ll remember something without writing it down. Once, I stranded my entire family in Italy because, in my brain, I knew the flight left at 9am on Tuesday and I didn’t need to check. But it was 9pm [the day prior] and we missed the flights completely and had to stay at the airport. This is an example of the ADHD tax, and it happens to me weekly. I can talk to you about Britney Spears’ emotional breakdown in 2007, or who the queens were on season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars , but I couldn’t tell you where my keys are. I don’t choose which facts my brain remembers.

I’m also impatient – and I blame my tiny, Italian, constantly-in-motion father, Vincie . I had about three seconds to master any skill, from tying my shoelaces to welding something onto a car. If I didn’t, he’d say, “Get out of the way, I’ll do it!”

Being misunderstood – not by people who know me; they know I’m quite blunt but well-meaning. But my whole life, I’ve been haunted by people thinking they know what I’m saying, or making assumptions about me from a snippet or a line [from something I’ve said publicly]. That’s why I’m an over-sharer; I think that if I string enough of the right words together, a person will change their mind about me.

The older I get, the more I learn that clarity is my responsibility but how someone interprets me isn’t.